Return To Ambridge

I realised the other day that it's been a couple of years or more since I played a game using my Portable ECW Rules, and thought that I'd better give them another outing. Rules get lonely if you don't play them.

I was inspired a little by a post on the Portable Wargames Facebook Group in which someone had played a game and added in a small tweak whereby a unit had to spend a movement point to turn. This mad flanking moves slightly harder to achieve, something that I've been wanting to so for a while without a satisfactory solution. I wanted to give the change a try, and also look at not having retreats when flanked be impossible. On, and I also added in co-located artillery.

I set up a scenario I played for fictional The Battle of Ambridge, but fiddled with the army lists a little.

On the left is Parliament:

1 x Commander
1 x Experienced Dragoons
1 x Experienced Horse
3 x Raw Foot (one of which is Shot only)
3 x Experienced Foot
1 x Artillery
10 Command Dice, Breakpoint 15

On the right are the Royalists:

1 x Commander
1 x Elite Horse
1 x Experienced Horse
4 x Raw Foot
1 x Elite Foot
1 x Artillery
9 Command Dice, Breakpoint 14

The Royalists are trying to clear the road; there should be no Parliamentarian units on it or within one square of it by the end of the game.

I randomised the starting positions of each side by a clever mechanism called Making It Up As I Went Along. The Royalist horse was split between the two flanks. Parliament's horse and dragoons were on the Ambridge side of the river (which is impassable except at the bridge).

The Royalist horse on their left attacked, but was driven back by Parliament's foot.

Action all along the line, from behind the Royalist advance. On the right the Royalist horse was attacking its Parliamentarian opposite numbers with some success, whilst their foot was engaged with dragoons in the hedgerows.

The infantry got to grips in the centre.

The Royalist horse on their left was first to break.

The Royalists reorganised their line to bring up some reserve foot, as the infantry shoved back and forth. 

Destroying their opposite numbers, the elite Royalist horse turned on some Parliamentarian horse and drove them back to the river.

The Royalist commander was wounded, which would slow their attack, but it was offset by Parliament suffering a couple of random event induced turns where they had some command paralysis.

The Royalist attack was faltering now though as they lost another unit. Parliament's hold on the road was still strong.

At least I got to use the flanking move changes, as Parliament turned the Royalist line. 

Despite the Royalist losses in terms of units, Parliament reached their breakpoint first. The Royalists had spread casualties across the enemy force even if only one unit had broken. However the Parliamentarian morale held.

The Royalists reached their breakpoint and also passed their morale test. But their numbers were dwindling and time was running out (I set a limit of ten turns).

The battle ended with Parliament still in control of the road and the Royalists looking pretty shaken.

With hindsight the forces were too even (indeed Parliament's force may have been stronger). The Royalists certainly had a tough task ahead of them. If I did this again I'd downgrade a few of Parliament's units and give the Royalists some more units and boosts. I like the idea of them having a ford on their end of the river as well, so that they can consider swapping units from one side to the other.

It was fun to get these rules out again after such a long break.

The Battle Of Ambridge

'The Archers' is a British institution. Set in the village of Ambridge, this BBC radio 'everyday story of country folk' has been running since 1951, and is now the longest-running drama series in the world. At some point in its history it was established that there was a battle at Ambridge during the English Civil War so, of course, it would be rude not to have a go at refighting it.

To be fair, from what I can find out, there is pretty much no information about the battle aside from the fact that it happened in 1642, so any reconstruction is going to be somewhat conjectural. However Battle Of Bridgeton at Elenderil's 'Small But Perfectly Formed' blog is probably as good as we're going to get for a source, since it's based on notes provided by the BBC to a group from the Sealed Knot who were involved in a episode of the series which featured a reconstruction of the battle. In the comments on the blog Elenderil speculates that the battle may be based on that of Powick Bridge, which was certainly fought in the same area as The Archers is set, but his scenario isn't Powick Bridge.

Elenderil's scenario has the following background:

"The Royalists are preparing for the 1643 campaign season by bringing new recruits from Wales and the Welsh borders into Central England to join the King's main field army. After reaching the West Midlands they find the route blocked by a well fortified garrison at a significant river crossing. Marching downstream to secure crossings away from that garrison they hope to cross at the small village of Bridgeton where an old Roman road crossed the river at fords and a medieval bridge. As they cross a ridge line to the West of the village their Cavalry scouts report a force of the local Parliamentarians approaching from the East. The Parliamentarian force is tasked with denying the crossing to the Royalists and preventing them from moving further East"

Anyway, I took Elenderil's scenario, and fiddled with it a little, firstly in order to scale down the forces and terrain in order to fit it on an 8x8 portable wargame grid and, secondly, to put the village of Ambridge closer to the centre of the action by allowing some deployment on both sides of the River Am. For some reason he sets it in early 1643, although the only map I can find showing the location of the battlefield says 1642.

Here's the terrain setup, looking north. The River Am runs north-south and cannot be crossed except at the bridge. The village of Ambridge lies to the east of the river. The Royalists will approach from the south, looking to secure the road and the river-crossing in order to avoid a large Parliamentarian garrison on the river elsewhere (maybe the nearby town of Borchester). Parliament has sent troops from the garrison to hold the crossing, and they have marched from the east along the road and formed up to the north of the village.

Here's the two forces involved:

Parliament have:

1 x Commander

1 x Artillery

1 x Raw Horse

1 x Trained Horse
1 x Raw Pike & Shot

2 x Raw Pike & Shot

1 x Trained Dragoons
8 Initiative Dice, Breakpoint 11

The Royalists have:

1 x Commander

1 x Artillery

1 x Veteran Horse

2 x Trained Horse

1 x Raw Horse

1 x Trained Pike & Shot

3 x Raw Pike & Shot

10 Initiative Dice, Breakpoint 14

Deployment could be in the first two rows on the respective north (for Parliament) and south (for the Royalists) edges of the board.

The objective is for the Royalists to control the whole length of the road, by having no Parliamentarian unit on or adjacent to it at the end of eight turns. Obviously forcing the opposing army to break is an automatic win as well.

Both sides massed their horse to the west and foot in the centre. Some foot were on the Ambridge side of the river.

A cavalry action started to the west, and it was obvious that the superior Royalist numbers were going to win the day.

Both sides fought each other across the hedges to the east of the village.

Royalist horse routed one of the Parliamentarian units ...

... then turned on the flank of the foot.

An overview of the battle. At this stage the Royalist foot hadn't made much headway in the centre, but their horse were very much in control of the western end of the battlefield, and Royalist numbers were beginning to tell to the east of Ambridge.

Indeed the Parliamentarian troops to the east of the village quickly routed.

Parliament's commander fell as the Royalist horse kept up the pressure.

The Parliamentarian foot kept fighting and holding off theh Royalist horse, though. Royalist foot were now engaging the Parliamentarian dragoons across the river. The dragoons were the only unit Parliament had controlling the road.

The Royalists reorganised for one final push.

A Parliamentarian regiment was now surrounded, but kept fighting; the Royalists seemed unable to finish it off.

The dragoons were driven from the enclosures by the river.

This was enough to break Parliament's army. The Royalists picked up a win in six turns.

On the whole it was a pretty easy win for the Royalists; they never seemed in much trouble. I ran it through again, and they had a slightly harder time, but still picked up a win in seven turns. I may tweak the forces a little to make their job a touch harder.

Not that Elenderil's scenario has the village on the other side of the river; I moved it to make the main area of the board less cluttered. There are two river crossings as well. I simplified that too. Looking at semi-official maps of Ambridge, it actually appears that the river runs east-west, and that the main part of the village lies to the north:

And the battle takes place north of the village.

So maybe a scenario redesign is also in order. I must confess that I like the idea of the troops fighting through the village instead of just near it, though.

Whalley Rerun

I haven't tried this scenario for ages, but with a low unit-count and some open areas I thought that it would offer some excellent flanking opportunities in order to test my rules changes.

Here's a rundown of the forces:

Parliament

1 x Commander (Colonel Shuttleworth)
1 x Elite Pike & Shot (Shuttleworth's Foot)
1 x Average Pike & Shot (Brereton's Foot)
1 x Average Dragoons
2 x Raw Horse

Royalists

1 x Commander (Earl of Derby)
1 x Average Pike & Shot (Molyneux's Foot)
1 x Elite Pike & Shot (Tyldesley's Foot)
1 x Raw Pike & Shot (Fylde's Clubmen) - This unit cannot fire and starts with a Strength of 3
1 x Raw Dragoons
2 x Average Horse (Derby's Horse and Houghton's Horse)

The action starts with the Royalist advance party, consisting of Tyldesley's Foot and the dragoons, being surprised by Shuttleworth's Foot and Parliament's dragoons. To cover this I had Parliament go first. To simulate surprise, and the the fact that a lot of each side's forces were unprepared and acting as reinforcements, I gave the Royalists only 2 activation dice on the first turn, and only 4 on the second. Parliament was restricted to 4 activation dice on the first turn as well.

Tyldesley's Foot beat a hasty retreat when Parliament's foot opened fire on them. Surprisingly the dragoons stood their ground. 

The Royalist advanced party fell back towards the stream, but their horse was coming up and engaged their Parliamentarian opposing numbers.

Colonel Shuttleworth advanced his foot in pursuit of the Royalists

The Royalist horse was held back, allowing Parliament's horse to cross the stream and attack Lord Derby's troops. However the poor Parliamentarian horse wasn't really up to the task and was driven off completely.

With their forces now consolidated the Royalists advanced across the stream, and slowly began to push the Parliamentarians back.

Molyneux's Foot broke under fire ...

... but elsewhere the Royalist advance was a resounding success, the high-point of which was Fylde's Clubmen striking Colonel Shuttleworth's veteran foot in the flank and routing them.

Reduced to a regiment of foot and some dragoons, Parliament's army broke.

I fought it again the next day. After having a look at the terrain on Google Maps I made the stream trickier to cross in the second game (stop when you reach it and on the next bound the only move you can make is to cross one square). This time the initial Parliamentarian volley destroyed the Royalist dragoons, whilst Parliament's horse pushed back the Royalist cavalry. The Royalists quickly found themselves on the back foot, and defending the stream-line, but steady fire from Parliament's foot and flank attacks from their horse saw Lord Derby's men break.

The flank attack changes didn't get a massive test in either of these games, since most retreats were blocked anyway, but I will keep trying.

Newbury

I am playing around with my Portable ECW rules a little more at the moment, looking at two things. The first is the co-location of artillery with other units, rather than it occupying a square on its own. I covered this in a post earlier this month. The second is a tweak to the way flank attacks work.

Flanking enemy units is basically very easy in most iterations of the Portable Wargame, but over time I've made the effects of being flanked deadlier, especially in how it affects the ability to retreat. For the past year I've been considering ways to help reduce this. I started by looking at making it harder to make a flank attack, but couldn't get that to work for me. But the other day I clicked that really I'd created my own problem by making it harder - nay, impossible - for flanked units to retreat. I went back to the basic Portable Wargame rules and in those a unit can simply retreat, so long as it's not blocked by terrain or other units. So if you are hit in the front and have an enemy on your flank as well, you can still retreat from the unit in front of you.

So for my own Portable ECW rules I have decided to try the following change: When testing for the effects of a hit a unit takes a -1 modifier to the roll if they are in the frontal zone of more than one unit. This makes it more likely that they will simply take a hit, but doesn't preclude a retreat. The rule that a unit cannot retreat if in the front squares of more than one unit is removed. All other retreat rules apply.

To test this I set up my refight of Newbury, which has become a default scenario for any testing, since it has a decent number of units, a relatively simple battlefield and roughly equal forces.

So here is everything set up and ready to go, with Parliament on the right and the Royalists on the left. 

After a couple of moves the two armies were closer together. Parliament were on Round Hill, which is the only objective in the scenario. Both sides had ensconced themselves in enclosures to the north, whilsy the horse of both sides massed on Wash Common to the south.

The cavalry action on Wash Common. Both sides had taken hits.

On their extreme left the Royalists broke through and routed the Parliamentarian horse opposing them.

With their horse looking shaky to the south, the Parliamentarian troop to the north on their left flank advanced, hoping to drive the Royalists out of the enclosures and turn their right flank.

The Royalist horse was slowly grinding down and pushing back the Parliamentarian horse, and were soon able to turn on the flank of Parliament's centre.

Parliament brought up a reserve regiment to hold them off, but their cavalry was collapsing and the Royalists would soon have nothing between them and the Parliamentarian flank and rear.

The last of the Parliamentarian horse routed.

The Royalist horse began to attack Parliament's right. However towards Newbury, Parliament was putting in a string attack on the enclosures.

It wasn't enough, though. Their attacking foot regiment broke against a strong defence by the Royalist foot, and it was enough for Parliament to reach their breakpoint. They failed their first morale test, despite holding the objective, and the battle was over.

The co-located guns got a nice test here, adding in factor to the units they were with in both shooting and close combat. However the flanking changes didn't get tested at all; any units hit in the flank simply took SP hits and didn't get the option to retreat.

So this means I need to play more games ...

Hopton Heath

I set up refight of the 1643 battle of Hopton Heath yesterday, based on a scenario posted on the Portable Wargame Facebook Group by Leeson Paul. 

I did make a couple of modifications; some to fit the OOB with my rules and one because I didn't have enough dragoon units to field the three per side that the scenario calls for. I also made a couple of mistakes in replicating his terrain and set-up; an additional hedge and putting the Parliamentarian shot in the wrong place.

Anyway, on with the OOB

Royalists

Commander - Lord Northampton - 1SP
Northampton's Horse - 3SP
Prince of Wales Horse - 4SP
Loughborough's Horse - 3SP
Lane's Horse Regiment - 2SP
Loughborough's Dragoons - 2 x 3SP
Bagot's Foot - 3SP
A Very Big Gun - 2SP
Total 24SP (Break Point 12)

Parliament

Commander - Sir John Gell - 1SP
Gell's Horse - 2SP
Brereton's Horse - 2SP
Brereton's Dragoons - 2 x 3SP
Gell's Foot - 4SP
Brooke's Foot - 4SP
Brereton's Foot - 4SP*
Gell's Musketeers - 3SP
Guns - 2 x 2SP
Total 30SP (Break Point 15)
*Roll a D6 at the start of each turn. On a '6' this unit arrives on the road.

Here's the setup, with the Royalists to the left and Parliament to the right.

Lord Northampton led his horse in a direct assault on Gell's right. Gell himself was with his dragoons in the enclousers in the centre.

Fire from the dragoons and their attached gun drove back some of the Royalist horse.

Disaster! Lord Northampton fell at the head of his horse taking the momentum out of the Royalist attack.

On the other flank Loughborough's dragoons had been advancing on the Parliamentarian left where more dragoons were defending some hedgerows, again supported by guns. As the Royalist momentum slowed Gell's foot came down off the hills and swung into the flank of the attacking dragoons.

Brooke's foot captured 'Roaring Meg', the Royalists' mighty cannon.

The Royalist horse was slowly getting the better of Parliament's horse, but were suffering as well.

Loghborough's Horse broke.

The Prince of Wales Horse swung around the the Parliamentarian flank and charged Gell's musketeers, who had the protection of the hedge I placed in error.

They were driven back and the hits they took were enough for the Royalists to reach their breakpoint. They failed their first morale check and the battle was over.

So a short engagement in which the Royalists never really got going. I tried it again this morning, and the Royalists did a little better. The swept away Parliament's horse, but couldn't finish off the dragoons in the centre. Their own dragoons failed to oust Gell's Musketeers from the hedges on Parliament's left and Brereton's Foot turned up to drive them off and break the Royalist army again.

In both games (and the others I played this week) I used the experimental diagonal proximity rule I'd come up with last year to make flank attacks harder. I'm beginning to think it doesn't really work and now restricts movement just a little too much, so I'm going to consider something else to limit flank attacks.

I also tried out allowing units to co-locate with guns, since it's always irked me that artillery takes up a whole square. I currently only have scribbled notes, but this is what they say:

"Gun Co-Location

A unit may share a square with a gun.
Both must be activated individually.
The unit always counts as the primary occupant in terms of being a target or initiating combat.
The gun may fire normally if the unit doesn't have a target within range.
Otherwise the unit fires and the gun gives it a +1
A gun in a square gives a defending unit a +1 in close combat if the combat is taking place in the direction the gun is pointing.
If the unit is forced to retreat from close combat and the attacker can pursue, the gun is lost. Otherwise it takes a hit if the unit with it retreats."

There's still a few things to iron out, such as what happens if the gun and the unit aren't facing the same direction, but I'll wing that for now.